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I don't understand that line of thinking. Blizzard still puts out good games, Blizzard still employees some of the original lead designers on their various franchises. Blizzard is still run by the same group of core executives it's been run by for twenty years. Why exactly is Blizzard a shell of itself? It's just such a hyperbolic statement, with almost nothing to back it up.

i'm going to have to ask for a citation here. It looks to me that most of the WC3 devs and the original WOW devs have moved on (LoL, HON, DOTA2). I suspect the same for most of the executives.

Christ Metzen? Samwise Didiet? Michael Morheim? All still there. Chris Metzen was the primary designer of most things WarCraft. If you're going to give him shit for later WarCraft, you have to give him equal credit for early WarCraft.

You still haven't cited a single reason Blizzard is a "shell of itself", other than being bought by Activision. This is especially funny since you fanatically play StarCraft 2, a game you claim isn't very good and you use an example of how Blizzard is a shell of itself.

I don't understand that line of thinking. Blizzard still puts out good games, Blizzard still employees some of the original lead designers on their various franchises. Blizzard is still run by the same group of core executives it's been run by for twenty years. Why exactly is Blizzard a shell of itself? It's just such a hyperbolic statement, with almost nothing to back it up.

i'm going to have to ask for a citation here. It looks to me that most of the WC3 devs and the original WOW devs have moved on (LoL, HON, DOTA2). I suspect the same for most of the executives.

I don't understand that line of thinking. Blizzard still puts out good games, Blizzard still employees some of the original lead designers on their various franchises. Blizzard is still run by the same group of core executives it's been run by for twenty years. Why exactly is Blizzard a shell of itself? It's just such a hyperbolic statement, with almost nothing to back it up.

i'm going to have to ask for a citation here. It looks to me that most of the WC3 devs and the original WOW devs have moved on (LoL, HON, DOTA2). I suspect the same for most of the executives.

Christ Metzen? Samwise Didiet? Michael Morheim? All still there. Chris Metzen was the primary designer of most things WarCraft. If you're going to give him shit for later WarCraft, you have to give him equal credit for early WarCraft.

You still haven't cited a single reason Blizzard is a "shell of itself", other than being bought by Activision. This is especially funny since you fanatically play StarCraft 2, a game you claim isn't very good and you use an example of how Blizzard is a shell of itself.

i like the game, and i play it a lot.

i wish that it would evolve a bit faster, and the external effort being shown by blizzard is minimal towards improvement of the game, and I'm doubtful that they use all the statistical tools that they should have available to them to make decisions.

again, look at the business models between riot and blizz/sc2. One has to be showing constant improvement in order to make money, the other got their money up front and doesnt really need to improve anything, they've already got your money.

Look at # of people online, or # of games in your region. It's easily 10x off of release date. LoL, which has been out much longer, has a clearly worse engine, a legendarily bad community, no UMS has only grown its player base, and become the bigger esports franchise.

I don't understand that line of thinking. Blizzard still puts out good games, Blizzard still employees some of the original lead designers on their various franchises. Blizzard is still run by the same group of core executives it's been run by for twenty years. Why exactly is Blizzard a shell of itself? It's just such a hyperbolic statement, with almost nothing to back it up.

i'm going to have to ask for a citation here. It looks to me that most of the WC3 devs and the original WOW devs have moved on (LoL, HON, DOTA2). I suspect the same for most of the executives.

Christ Metzen? Samwise Didiet? Michael Morheim? All still there. Chris Metzen was the primary designer of most things WarCraft. If you're going to give him shit for later WarCraft, you have to give him equal credit for early WarCraft.

You still haven't cited a single reason Blizzard is a "shell of itself", other than being bought by Activision. This is especially funny since you fanatically play StarCraft 2, a game you claim isn't very good and you use an example of how Blizzard is a shell of itself.

i like the game, and i play it a lot.

i wish that it would evolve a bit faster, and the external effort being shown by blizzard is minimal towards improvement of the game, and I'm doubtful that they use all the statistical tools that they should have available to them to make decisions.

again, look at the business models between riot and blizz/sc2. One has to be showing constant improvement in order to make money, the other got their money up front and doesnt really need to improve anything, they've already got your money.

Look at # of people online, or # of games in your region. It's easily 10x off of release date. LoL, which has been out much longer, has a clearly worse engine, a legendarily bad community, no UMS has only grown its player base, and become the bigger esports franchise.

which one do you think is a company in touch with it's customers?

Joe, I think you're exaggerating bud. I think the number and content of patches has been pretty consistent with past iterations of starcraft or warcraft. I think the developer involvement is roughly equal to what it's been in the past. You're comparing Blizzard with Riot Games when you should be comparing Blizzard 2012 with Blizzard 2002. Sure Riot Games is very involved with their game, but then they're a much smaller company with only one game under their belt. Not exactly a fair comparison. Blizzard really hasn't changed that much in the past 10 years.

I don't understand that line of thinking. Blizzard still puts out good games, Blizzard still employees some of the original lead designers on their various franchises. Blizzard is still run by the same group of core executives it's been run by for twenty years. Why exactly is Blizzard a shell of itself? It's just such a hyperbolic statement, with almost nothing to back it up.

i'm going to have to ask for a citation here. It looks to me that most of the WC3 devs and the original WOW devs have moved on (LoL, HON, DOTA2). I suspect the same for most of the executives.

Christ Metzen? Samwise Didiet? Michael Morheim? All still there. Chris Metzen was the primary designer of most things WarCraft. If you're going to give him shit for later WarCraft, you have to give him equal credit for early WarCraft.

You still haven't cited a single reason Blizzard is a "shell of itself", other than being bought by Activision. This is especially funny since you fanatically play StarCraft 2, a game you claim isn't very good and you use an example of how Blizzard is a shell of itself.

i like the game, and i play it a lot.

i wish that it would evolve a bit faster, and the external effort being shown by blizzard is minimal towards improvement of the game, and I'm doubtful that they use all the statistical tools that they should have available to them to make decisions.

again, look at the business models between riot and blizz/sc2. One has to be showing constant improvement in order to make money, the other got their money up front and doesnt really need to improve anything, they've already got your money.

Look at # of people online, or # of games in your region. It's easily 10x off of release date. LoL, which has been out much longer, has a clearly worse engine, a legendarily bad community, no UMS has only grown its player base, and become the bigger esports franchise.

which one do you think is a company in touch with it's customers?

How does it evolve any slower than any other non-F2P game? You said it yourself, completely different business models. SC2 has had a shit ton of patches and improvement since it's release.

For that matter, Riot and LoL has it's own share of issues, like a game they can't balance to save their fucking lives. Promises eSports features they aren't even working on (replays being a big one) because they are too busy releasing new champs and skins to make money. A promised stealth rework for over a year. Two words: Magma Chamber. Two more words: Pulsefire Ezreal.

Riot is not some perfect scion of a company. They are out to make money just like Blizzard is.

the external effort being shown by blizzard is minimal towards improvement of the game

this is possibly the most general statement ever. I'm trying my hardest but can't come up with anything feasible that would fit this description outside of lan support/saved game states, and those primarily affect tourney play. I'm also not in blizzard's position regarding their own title, mind you, but the only other thing I can think of that you mean is balance, and the honest fact is nobody cares about the layman's balance ideas.

also, everything gnometank said about lol is true. I have no idea why the company that endlessly churns out unnecessary, imbalanced content for $$$ is somehow superior to the one that lets things work out on their own without patching every other week based on fearmongering and doomsaying.

It's a bit silly and extreme the other way to think Blizzard hasn't changed at all, especially after WoW and all the people who left for various other projects.

The most obvious comparison one could make is between how Blizzard handled BW and how Blizzard has handled SC2 and draw conclusions from that. Of course there might be other reasons for differences, but to wholeheartedly assume "Blizzard" is the same as it's ever been is just as silly as saying "Blizzard" has sold out to the Acti-man.

So, this is only nominally related to SC2, but in line with the conversation afoot: do you think it's even possible to balance a game with 5^(number of champions) possible "teams" that LoL has?

I'm not a professional statistician, but it seems to me likely that Riot is planning, indeed can only plan, to keep the "error bars" on balance wide enough, by dint of there being way too many variables to parse in a given match, that only truly egregious mistakes (like bug-level mistakes in a spell's power or whatnot) would be seen as true "balance issues". SC2 feels much more like a game that is amenable to being "solved" in the way that certain chess positions have been "solved" by rigorous algorithmic analysis.

It's a bit silly and extreme the other way to think Blizzard hasn't changed at all, especially after WoW and all the people who left for various other projects.

The most obvious comparison one could make is between how Blizzard handled BW and how Blizzard has handled SC2 and draw conclusions from that. Of course there might be other reasons for differences, but to wholeheartedly assume "Blizzard" is the same as it's ever been is just as silly as saying "Blizzard" has sold out to the Acti-man.

Saying Blizzard has changed, and saying Blizzard is a "shell of itself", or a bit different. No company never changes. Of course Blizzard has changed. They are still releasing some of the highest quality PC titles in the world.

also, everything gnometank said about lol is true. I have no idea why the company that endlessly churns out unnecessary, imbalanced content for $$$ is somehow superior to the one that lets things work out on their own without patching every other week based on fearmongering and doomsaying.

they make imbalanced champs every other week in order to make money. there's not much looking past that for a motivation.

they also have a seperate version, the "tournament" version that is very slow to change, and is several patches behind so as not to introduce game breaking balance gaffes.

As for "nobody cares about balancing at the lower levels... well, for example PA has less than 5 people (and no, i'm not in that category) that fit, and catering to that small percentage of your fanbase is bad business. yes, balanced for high level play, FUN FOR THE REST is prbly what the right attitude is here.

So, this is only nominally related to SC2, but in line with the conversation afoot: do you think it's even possible to balance a game with 5^(number of champions) possible "teams" that LoL has?

I'm not a professional statistician, but it seems to me likely that Riot is planning, indeed can only plan, to keep the "error bars" on balance wide enough, by dint of there being way too many variables to parse in a given match, that only truly egregious mistakes (like bug-level mistakes in a spell's power or whatnot) would be seen as true "balance issues". SC2 feels much more like a game that is amenable to being "solved" in the way that certain chess positions have been "solved" by rigorous algorithmic analysis.

The balance in DotA and HoN came from Captain's mode and Banning Pick. Each side could pick several heroes to ban, which removed the most overpowered heroes. The underpowered heroes don't get picked. In the end you're left with a pool of 15-20 heroes to actually balance.

I read some interview with some dude that apparently makes games that people like because they funded his game on Kickstarter that Blizzard and Valve enjoy a certain freedom because they are both developers and publishers, so they don't have suits who just want the benjamins breathing down their necks while they code +25 damage to armor for the new units in HotS or pretend to code HL3 but instead just read forums and drink tea.

So, this is only nominally related to SC2, but in line with the conversation afoot: do you think it's even possible to balance a game with 5^(number of champions) possible "teams" that LoL has?

absolutely impossible, they make the tiniest alterations to a few champs every patch to pretend they're affecting some sort of change (and the meta, which is ruthlessly flavor-of-the-month, changes to reflect these miniscule changes), but some champs are always miles above the rest in specific roles and some champs are unconscionable choices to inflict upon your own team.

edit: bans are an essential mention here; at this point, 6 of them in draft mode isn't close to enough to eliminate the top tier because there's ~95 champs. I'd definitely be for increasing the ban number to 8 or 10 at this point because we'll be breaking 100 in a month or two.

It's a bit silly and extreme the other way to think Blizzard hasn't changed at all, especially after WoW and all the people who left for various other projects.

The most obvious comparison one could make is between how Blizzard handled BW and how Blizzard has handled SC2 and draw conclusions from that. Of course there might be other reasons for differences, but to wholeheartedly assume "Blizzard" is the same as it's ever been is just as silly as saying "Blizzard" has sold out to the Acti-man.

Saying Blizzard has changed, and saying Blizzard is a "shell of itself", or a bit different. No company never changes. Of course Blizzard has changed. They are still releasing some of the highest quality PC titles in the world.

So, this is only nominally related to SC2, but in line with the conversation afoot: do you think it's even possible to balance a game with 5^(number of champions) possible "teams" that LoL has?

absolutely impossible, they make the tiniest alterations to a few champs every patch to pretend they're affecting some sort of change (and the meta, which is ruthlessly flavor-of-the-month, changes to reflect these miniscule changes), but some champs are always miles above the rest in specific roles and some champs are unconscionable choices to inflict upon your own team.

I imagine they handle it much like fighting games with 23423 playable characters with tiers and the like.

Saying Blizzard has changed, and saying Blizzard is a "shell of itself", or a bit different. No company never changes. Of course Blizzard has changed. They are still releasing some of the highest quality PC titles in the world.

So, this is only nominally related to SC2, but in line with the conversation afoot: do you think it's even possible to balance a game with 5^(number of champions) possible "teams" that LoL has?

absolutely impossible, they make the tiniest alterations to a few champs every patch to pretend they're affecting some sort of change (and the meta, which is ruthlessly flavor-of-the-month, changes to reflect these miniscule changes), but some champs are always miles above the rest in specific roles and some champs are unconscionable choices to inflict upon your own team.

edit: bans are an essential mention here; at this point, 6 of them in draft mode isn't close to enough to eliminate the top tier because there's ~95 champs. I'd definitely be for increasing the ban number to 8 or 10 at this point because we'll be breaking 100 in a month or two.

Evilyn comes to mind. Completely useless in LoL because she is balanced around her perma-stealth, except that stealth is broken (see the promised stealth rework), meaning they can't make Evi non-useless until stealth is reworked....There are other heroes in this predicament (Twitch comes to mind), but Evi is considered the most egregious.

Imagine if people just couldn't use Stalkers because they were balanced around Blink, but Blink required a total rework.

So, this is only nominally related to SC2, but in line with the conversation afoot: do you think it's even possible to balance a game with 5^(number of champions) possible "teams" that LoL has?

I'm not a professional statistician, but it seems to me likely that Riot is planning, indeed can only plan, to keep the "error bars" on balance wide enough, by dint of there being way too many variables to parse in a given match, that only truly egregious mistakes (like bug-level mistakes in a spell's power or whatnot) would be seen as true "balance issues". SC2 feels much more like a game that is amenable to being "solved" in the way that certain chess positions have been "solved" by rigorous algorithmic analysis.

it's certainly a different challenge, but its not on the level of balancing 3 separate but equal races. Talking solely about draft pick (because blind pick is insane); First, you're balancing for teams of 5 characters. the rest of the armies and structures are identical. Between the teams, they can throw out 6 champions, so if one champion is clearly OP, they're on the perma-ban list, eliminating the the worst offenders (or the best toon for a certain guy on the opposing team.) The draft structure makes it possible to make hard counter picks against what can be considered OP champs. Riot also has a history of collecting data, and nerfing into the ground clearly OP champs, and mechanics that cause problems. Look at Evelynn for example, easily the worst champ in the game, who used to be at the top of everyones "BANNINATE NOW" list.

Can you imagine if you sat down to play SC2, and you got to pick 3 units that your opponent couldnt make?

The funny thing about LoL is that, I believe, its far more "solvable" (and let's face it both games are NP-Hard problems) than starcraft. The winning team in LoL will always have more gold than the losing team. While economy often translates to wins in SC2, it isn't the sole indicator of success in sc2, which should make sc2 a harder problem to solve.

and i'll note that chess is still considered np-hard, as while certain positions are "solved", it is not considered a solved game, like tic tac toe.

Should probably mention item balancing. A lot of pro DotA had limits on how many of an item you could build per team/hero and some items were banned entirely. For example in a lot of leagues, you can only get one Guinsoo's per team because the chain disable is too good, and Blink Dagger is disallowed on Pudge and Vengeful Spirit.

A lot of that has carried in to DotA 2, especially the Blink Dagger one. I think the Guinsoo's got nerfed across the board actually. I actually never see anyone build it in DotA 2. Things like Butterfly, Urn, Orchid, Shadow Blade and Blink Dagger are much more popular.

So, this is only nominally related to SC2, but in line with the conversation afoot: do you think it's even possible to balance a game with 5^(number of champions) possible "teams" that LoL has?

I'm not a professional statistician, but it seems to me likely that Riot is planning, indeed can only plan, to keep the "error bars" on balance wide enough, by dint of there being way too many variables to parse in a given match, that only truly egregious mistakes (like bug-level mistakes in a spell's power or whatnot) would be seen as true "balance issues". SC2 feels much more like a game that is amenable to being "solved" in the way that certain chess positions have been "solved" by rigorous algorithmic analysis.

it's certainly a different challenge, but its not on the level of balancing 3 separate but equal races. Talking solely about draft pick (because blind pick is insane); First, you're balancing for teams of 5 characters. the rest of the armies and structures are identical. Between the teams, they can throw out 6 champions, so if one champion is clearly OP, they're on the perma-ban list, eliminating the the worst offenders (or the best toon for a certain guy on the opposing team.) The draft structure makes it possible to make hard counter picks against what can be considered OP champs. Riot also has a history of collecting data, and nerfing into the ground clearly OP champs, and mechanics that cause problems. Look at Evelynn for example, easily the worst champ in the game, who used to be at the top of everyones "BANNINATE NOW" list.

Can you imagine if you sat down to play SC2, and you got to pick 3 units that your opponent couldnt make?

The funny thing about LoL is that, I believe, its far more "solvable" (and let's face it both games are NP-Hard problems) than starcraft. The winning team in LoL will always have more gold than the losing team. While economy often translates to wins in SC2, it isn't the sole indicator of success in sc2, which should make sc2 a harder problem to solve.

and i'll note that chess is still considered np-hard, as while certain positions are "solved", it is not considered a solved game, like tic tac toe.

I feel like this is splitting semantic hairs but what you're describing seems more like a few checks against a massive clusterfuck than real balance, or maybe the act of deciding that banning the really annoying assholes is alright, but then you're left with the same (varied, but remaining within the tier) assholes you see every game that are drawn from the same third of the roster while the rest of them moulder.

there's simply too many of them, I don't really feel that's an arguable point. organizing by tier is much less depressing when you have smaller pools to drawn from and decidedly less potential going to waste, and I'm really not prepared to call what league has going a balanced game. by no means is it broken, however.

getting away from all this league talk...I'm getting the starcraft shakes as of late. must...remain...spectator...

so the shredder was cut because it could easily kill a lot of workers with little or no warning

it would be terrible if terran had a unit that did that

I get it

and this is why i'm at a loss for why it, along with certain other units, are being considered. The thought process doesn't make sense to me. The new-corsair made a helluva lot of sense compared to a too-high to be useful upgrade for the phoenix. battle hellions make no sense to me... i mean, this is the race that has bunkers, marines, hellions and marauders? what purpose would they serve? why does terran need another anti-air option? why would you make a long-range bomber/fighter, when this was the Void Ray's original purpose was, but had to be drastically changed? why go with a failed idea?

so the shredder was cut because it could easily kill a lot of workers with little or no warning

it would be terrible if terran had a unit that did that

I get it

and this is why i'm at a loss for why it, along with certain other units, are being considered. The thought process doesn't make sense to me. The new-corsair made a helluva lot of sense compared to a too-high to be useful upgrade for the phoenix. battle hellions make no sense to me... i mean, this is the race that has bunkers, marines, hellions and marauders? what purpose would they serve? why does terran need another anti-air option? why would you make a long-range bomber/fighter, when this was the Void Ray's original purpose was, but had to be drastically changed? why go with a failed idea?

How can you say the game needs to be more like BW and then complain about them adding Firebats?

so the shredder was cut because it could easily kill a lot of workers with little or no warning

it would be terrible if terran had a unit that did that

I get it

and this is why i'm at a loss for why it, along with certain other units, are being considered. The thought process doesn't make sense to me. The new-corsair made a helluva lot of sense compared to a too-high to be useful upgrade for the phoenix. battle hellions make no sense to me... i mean, this is the race that has bunkers, marines, hellions and marauders? what purpose would they serve? why does terran need another anti-air option? why would you make a long-range bomber/fighter, when this was the Void Ray's original purpose was, but had to be drastically changed? why go with a failed idea?

Didn't the corsair only make sense after protoss started using them to kill overlords for DT harrass. That probably wasn't obvious when it was announced. I wonder how many Joe Ks there were complaining about the new broodwar units back when they were announced.

Besides, I bet I could name other broodwar units that ended up being pretty useless.

so the shredder was cut because it could easily kill a lot of workers with little or no warning

it would be terrible if terran had a unit that did that

I get it

and this is why i'm at a loss for why it, along with certain other units, are being considered. The thought process doesn't make sense to me. The new-corsair made a helluva lot of sense compared to a too-high to be useful upgrade for the phoenix. battle hellions make no sense to me... i mean, this is the race that has bunkers, marines, hellions and marauders? what purpose would they serve? why does terran need another anti-air option? why would you make a long-range bomber/fighter, when this was the Void Ray's original purpose was, but had to be drastically changed? why go with a failed idea?

How can you say the game needs to be more like BW and then complain about them adding Firebats?

Most of the complaints I see along these lines is that they aren't Firebats, to the T, exact copies. They are battle form hellions, which while having the exact same function as a Firebat, doesn't make them Firebats...and most people who want a BW clone want just that...a BW clone.